Ivan Tasovac, the Director of Belgrade Philharmonic and former Serbian Minister of Culture and Information, died suddenly on September 29th in Belgrade at the age of 55. Born in Belgrade, Tasovac graduated and received his master's degree in piano from the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Tasovac made his debut as a pianist with the Belgrade and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestras at the age of 12.
During his professional piano career, Tasovac performed as a soloist and with orchestras in Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, the USA, Russia, Belgium, the former Yugoslav republics and other countries, and since the early 2000s he was dedicated to the managerial work at the head of the Belgrade Philharmonic.
As the director of the Belgrade Philharmonic, Tasovac improved institutional and regional cooperation of BGF. The Philharmonic became “one of the leading European orchestras“(Independent), a “cult Serbian orchestra“ (Financial Times). In addition to the notable international appearances of the orchestra throughout Europe, at the initiative of Tasovac, in the fall of 2014 the first tour in the history of the Belgrade Philharmonic in the USA was realized.
In 2004, Tasovac started the Belgrade Philharmonic Foundation "Zubin Mehta". "Friends of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra" Foundation, founded in 2012 in New York, also contributes to the realization of numerous goals and projects of that foundation. He was bound by a special friendship with Mehta, who performed again in Belgrade in the summer of 2021, when he stated that "everyone should support the magnificent Belgrade Philharmonic".